1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a system for using Internet domain names to route data sent to a destination on a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most machines on the Internet use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) to send data to other machines on the Internet. To transmit data from a source to a destination, the Internet Protocol (IP) uses an IP address. An IP address is four bytes long, which consists of a network number and a host number.
There are at least three different classes of networks currently in use: Class A, Class B and Class C. Each class has a different format for the combination of the network number and the host number in the IP addresses. A Class A address includes one byte to specify the network and three bytes to specify the host. The first bit of a Class A address is a 0 to indicate Class A. A Class B address uses two bytes for the network address and two bytes for the host address. The first two bits of the Class B address are 10 to indicate Class B. The Class C address includes three bytes to specify the network and one byte for the host address. The first three bits of the Class C network address are 110 to indicate Class C. The formats described above allow for 126 Class A networks with 16 million hosts each; 16,382 Class B networks with up to 64K hosts each; and 4 million Class C networks with up to 256 hosts each.
When written out, IP addresses are specified as four numbers separated by dots (e.g. 198.68.70.1). Users and software applications rarely refer to hosts, mailboxes or other resources by their numerical IP address. Instead of using numbers, they use ASCII strings called domain names. A domain name is usually in the form of prefix.name_of_organization.top_level_domain. There are two types of top level domains: generic and countries. The generic domains are corn (commercial), edu (educational institutions), gov (the U.S. Federal Government), int (international organizations), mil (the U.S. Armed Forces), net (network providers), and org (non-profit-organizations). The country domains include one entry for each country. An example of a domain name is saturn.ttc.com. The term xe2x80x9csaturnxe2x80x9d is the prefix and may refer to a particular host in the network. The phrase xe2x80x9cttcxe2x80x9d is the name of the organization and can be used to identify one or more networks to the outside world. The phrase xe2x80x9ccomxe2x80x9d signifies that this address is in the commercial domain. The Internet uses a Domain Name System to convert the domain name to an IP address.
The Internet Protocol has been in use for over two decades. It has worked extremely well, as demonstrated by the exponential growth of the Internet. Unfortunately, the Internet is rapidly becoming a victim of its own popularity: it is running out of addresses. Over 4 billion addresses exist, but the practice of organizing the address space into classes wastes millions of addresses. In particular, the problem is the Class B network. For most organizations, a Class A network, with 16 million addresses is too big, and a Class C network with 256 addresses is too small. A Class B network appears to be the right solution for most companies. In reality, however, a Class B address is far too Large for most organizations. Many Class B networks have fewer than 50 hosts. A Class C network would have done the job, but many organizations that ask for Class B networks thought that one day they would outgrow the 8 bit host field.
One proposed solution to the depleting address problem is Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR). The basic idea behind CIDR is to allocate the remaining Class C networks in varied sized blocks. If a site needs 2,000 addresses, it is given a block of contiguous Class C networks, and not a full Class B network address. In addition to using blocks of contiguous Class C networks as units, the allocation rules for Class C addresses are also changed by partitioning the world into four zones. Each zone includes a predefined number of Class C networks. Although CIDR may buy a few more years time, IP addresses will still run out in the foreseeable future.
Another proposed solution is Network Address Translation (NAT). This concept includes predefining a number of Class C network addresses to be or local addresses (also called private addresses). The remainder of the addresses are considered global addresses. Global addresses are unique addresses. That is, no two entities on the Internet will have the same global address. Local addresses are not unique and can be used by more than one organization or network. However, a local address cannot be used on the Internet. Local addresses can only be used within a private network. NAT assumes that less all of the machines on a private network will not need to access the Internet at all times. Therefore, there is no need for each machine to have a global address. A company can function with a small number of global addresses assigned to one or more gateway computers. The remainder of the machines on the private network will be assigned local addresses. When a particular machine on the private network using a local address attempts to initiate a communication to a machine outside of the private network (e.g. via the Internet), the gateway machine will intercept the communication, change the source machine""s local address to a global address and set up a table for translation between global addresses and local addresses. The table can contain the destination address, port numbers, sequencing information, byte counts and internal flags for each connection associated with a host address. Inbound packets are compared against entries in the table and permitted through the gateway only if an appropriate connection exists to validate their passage. One problem with the NAT approach is that it only works for communication initiated by a host within the network to a host on the Internet which has a global IP address. The NAT approach specifically will not work if the communication is initiated by a host outside of the private network and is directed to a host with a local address on the private network.
Another solution that has been proposed is a new version of the Internet Protocol called IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6, also known as IPng). IPv6 is not compatible with the existing Internet Protocol (IPv4). For example, IPv6 has a longer address than IPv4. Additionally, the IPv6 header is different than the IPv4 header. Because IPv6 is not compatible with IPv4, almost all routing equipment on the Internet must be replaced with updated equipment that is compatible with IPv6. Such widespread replacement of legacy equipment is enormously expensive.
As can be seen, the current proposals to solve the diminishing IP addresses problem are inadequate and/or unduly expensive. Therefore, a system is needed that can effectively alleviate the diminishing IP addresses problem without unreasonable costs.
The present invention, roughly described, provides for a system for using domain names to route data sent to a destination on a network. One example includes routing data to a destination on a stub network. A stub network is a network owned by an organization that it is connected to the Internet through one or more gateways. Nodes in the stub network may be made visible to other nodes on the Internet or to other nodes in other stub networks interconnected through the Internet. Rather than use an entire set of global addresses for a Class A, B or C network, each corporate entity or stub network can be assigned one or a small number of global addresses. Each of the hosts can be assigned a local address. The same local addresses can be used by many different organizations. When a source entity sends data to a destination entity in a stub network with a local address, the data is sent to a global address for the destination""s network. The global address is assigned to a Domain Name Router in communication with the destination""s network. The Domain Name Router serves as a gateway between the Internet and the stub network. The Domain Name Router routes IP traffic between nodes on the Internet (identified by their globally unique IP addresses) and nodes in its stub network. The source entity embeds the destination""s domain name and its own domain name somewhere inside the data. The Domain Name Router receives the data, extracts the destination""s domain name from the data, translates that domain name to a local address in its stub network and sends the data to the destination. Note that the source entity could have either a local address or a global address and still be able to utilize the present invention.
One method for practicing the present invention includes packaging at least a subset of data to be communicated to an entity on a network into a data unit. That data unit is sent to a Domain Name Router or other similar entity. Information representing the domain name of the destination is extracted from the data unit and used to determine a local address for the destination. Once a local address is determined, the data unit is sent to that local address.
The data unit can be formed by receiving a first set of data and a domain name. A field (or other subset) is created, which includes a first set of information representing the domain name. The field is appended to the first set of data to create the data unit. The data unit is sent to the Domain Name Router. The data unit could be an IP packet, a TCP segment, or any other data unit suitable for use with the present invention as long as the domain name can be reliably extracted from the data. In one embodiment, the information used to represent the domain name could include an encrypted version of the domain name, an encoded version of the domain name, a compressed version of the domain name, etc.
In one embodiment, the data unit sent to the Domain Name Router includes a global IP address for the Domain Name Router. After translating the domain name to a local address, the Domain Name Router will replace the global address for the Domain Name Router with the local address of the destination. The step of replacing the global address with the local address can include adjusting any appropriate checksums or any other necessary fields in the data unit.
The Domain Name Router can be implemented using software stored on a processor readable storage medium and run on a computer or a router. Alternatively, the Domain Name Router can be specific hardware designed to carry out the methods described herein.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear more clearly from the following detailed description in which the preferred embodiment of the invention has been set forth in conjunction with the drawings.